Baseline characteristics of included NHS General Practice (GP) surgeries
| Conventional GP surgery, median (25th–75th percentile), n=7274 | IM/CAM GP surgery (subset 1),† median (25th–75th percentile), n=9 | |
| Number of registered patients | 6698 (4162–9942) | 7088 (4037–9534) |
| Male (%) | 49.7 (48.8–50.9) | 49.3 (46.9–49.4) |
| Aged 0–17 years (%) | 20.5 (18.5–23.0) | 21.2 (18.7–22.0) |
| Aged 18–64 years (%) | 61.2 (58.7–64.2) | 61.9 (60.3–62.4) |
| Aged 65+ years (%) | 17.2 (12.3–21.4) | 18.2 (14.0–18.4) |
| STAR-PU‡ | 3705 (2276–5599) | 3716 (2315–5382) |
| Coronary heart disease (%) | 3.3 (2.5–4.0) | 2.8 (2.1–3.1)* |
| Heart failure (%) | 0.7 (0.5–0.9) | 0.5 (0.4–0.8) |
| Asthma (%) | 6.0 (4.9–6.7) | 5.1 (4.8–6.2) |
| COPD (%) | 1.8 (1.3–2.4) | 1.0 (0.8–2.0) |
| Cancer (%) | 2.4 (1.7–3.0) | 2.5 (2.2–2.9)* |
| Chronic kidney disease (%) | 3.0 (2.0–4.1) | 1.9 (1.2–2.9) |
| Diabetes (%) | 5.4 (4.5–6.2) | 3.9 (2.9–4.6)* |
| Deprivation score | 0.27 (0.11–0.63) | 0.36 (0.15–0.48) |
*P<0.05.
†Subset 1: General Practices where an integrative medicine approach is taken with IM/CAM-trained General practitioners (GPs) (n=4) and General Practices listing IM/CAM therapy provision with IM/CAM-trained GP (n=5).
‡Oral antibacterial item-based STAR-PUs. The amount of STAR-PU per practice was estimated by multiplying the number of patients in each age–gender category by the relevant STAR-PU weights (see the Methods section for detailed explanation on STAR-PUs).
COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; NHS, National Health Service; STAR-PU, Specific Therapeutic Group Age–sex weightings Related Prescribing Unit.